The Ball and the Cross eBook

Dr. Hutton’s smile broke into a laugh which,
short as it was, had the suspicion of a shake in it.
“I suppose you think that quite a simple question,”
he said.

“I think it a plain question,” said Turnbull,
“and one that deserves a plain answer.
Why did the Master lock us up in a couple of cupboards
like jars of pickles for a mortal month, and why does
he now let us walk free in the garden again?”

“I understand,” said Hutton, with arched
eyebrows, “that your complaint is that you are
now free to walk in the garden.”

“My complaint is,” said Turnbull, stubbornly,
“that if I am fit to walk freely now, I have
been as fit for the last month. No one has examined
me, no one has come near me. Your chief says
that I am only free because he has made other arrangements.
What are those arrangements?”

The young man with the round face looked down for
a little while and smoked reflectively. The
other and elder doctor had gone pacing nervously by
himself upon the lawn. At length the round face
was lifted again, and showed two round blue eyes with
a certain frankness in them.

“Well, I don’t see that it can do any
harm to tell you know,” he said. “You
were shut up just then because it was just during that
month that the Master was bringing off his big scheme.
He was getting his bill through Parliament, and organizing
the new medical police. But of course you haven’t
heard of all that; in fact, you weren’t meant
to.”

“Heard of all what?” asked the impatient
inquirer.

“There’s a new law now, and the asylum
powers are greatly extended. Even if you did
escape now, any policeman would take you up in the
next town if you couldn’t show a certificate
of sanity from us.”

“Well,” continued Dr. Hutton, “the
Master described before both Houses of Parliament
the real scientific objection to all existing legislation
about lunacy. As he very truly said, the mistake
was in supposing insanity to be merely an exception
or an extreme. Insanity, like forgetfulness,
is simply a quality which enters more or less into
all human beings; and for practical purposes it is
more necessary to know whose mind is really trustworthy
than whose has some accidental taint. We have
therefore reversed the existing method, and people
now have to prove that they are sane. In the
first village you entered, the village constable would
notice that you were not wearing on the left lapel
of your coat the small pewter S which is now necessary
to any one who walks about beyond asylum bounds or
outside asylum hours.”

“You mean to say,” said Turnbull, “that
this was what the Master of the asylum urged before
the House of Commons?”

Dr. Hutton nodded with gravity.

“And you mean to say,” cried Turnbull,
with a vibrant snort, “that that proposal was
passed in an assembly that calls itself democratic?”

The doctor showed his whole row of teeth in a smile.
“Oh, the assembly calls itself Socialist now,”
he said, “But we explained to them that this
was a question for men of science.”